This post won’t die

Sorry #ScienceSunday  peeps. I’m too lazy busy to write a new post for Easter. So I am yet again, resurrecting this post.

If you want to learn more about CT:

Medical Imaging 101 pt 2: CT

http://goo.gl/IHaFw

Originally shared by Chad Haney

Peeps Show Cancelled

In a previous post, I mentioned that I would image some peeps with Computed Tomography (CT), http://goo.gl/Syxit. I did that below. However, I wanted to use the peeps to show the difference between CT and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). I suspected that the peeps wouldn’t have enough free water to image with MRI so I had a plan B. I planned on injecting Barium Sulfate (BaSO4) which would be bright in CT because it’s more dense than water and it would hopefully be bright in the MRI because of the water in the BaSO4 solution. It turns out that I could not inject enough. It just oozes out. So the MRI was a bust. Since I’m good at procrastinating, I didn’t want to come up with a plan C. Also I couldn’t find any Zombie Peeps with cancer to image. Hence the Peeps Show is cancelled.

Since the CT worked, I can at least describe that. The bird peep has a voxel size of 130 micron and the bunny peep has a voxel size of 150 micron. The left column was acquired with 40 keV which, for in vivo imaging, would typically give better soft tissue contrast (not as good as MRI, but that’s another story). The right column was acquired with 75 keV which is typically better for bone imaging (not really possible in MRI).

In the bunny peep, you can see the BaSO4 that was injected. The video demonstrates that these are in fact 3D, i.e., tomographic images.

If you are interested in how peeps are made, here’s the link. http://goo.gl/dNypV

Now I have to work on something else for #sciencesunday